


For Freedom's Sake

by Jaelijn



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Dark, Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, M/M, Mercy Killing, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Post-Gauda Prime, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:15:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27840601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaelijn/pseuds/Jaelijn
Summary: After Gauda Prime, Avon has nothing left to lose. Or does he?
Relationships: Kerr Avon/Vila Restal
Comments: 10
Kudos: 21





	For Freedom's Sake

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very dark fic. I mean it - darker than most of anything else I've written. I wouldn't say it's gory or necessarily brutal, but it _is_ dark. You've been warned.
> 
> For those of you who enjoy this kind of thing. ;)

They dragged him before her in heavy chains. The Federation of old had never been known for the use of physical restraints where chemical means would suffice – that had always been the province of the slave traders, who, it was true, had operated under the sanction of the Federation, but always with the appropriate _official_ distance.

He suspected the chains amused her, the way it had amused her to have him conditioned to be unable to speak her name – _any_ of her names. Of all the conditioning that she could have laid into him once she had him, _that_ was the one and the _only_ one she had chosen.

The guards forced him to his knees – not that he would have been any more of a threat standing up. The fetters between his ankles and above his knees were barely long enough for a shuffling step, and the chain about his waist saw to it that he couldn’t lift his cuffed hands more than a few centimetres. The slavers’ collar was mostly for humiliation at this point, and Avon wished he could claim that it wasn’t working, but he didn’t see how he could sink any lower.

_She_ was smiling.

“Avon. So good to see you again.”

Avon didn’t bother to reply to that. “Let’s save all of us some time,” he rasped, “the answer is no, and it will always _be_ no.” She had nothing left to threaten him with. No wealth in the universe, no… acquaintances, nor his own life.

“We could break you, Avon.” She stood and strolled over to caress his hair – she knew better than to touch where he might bite her. He’d done it before, and with even less hope of breaking free.

“Don’t let me stop you,” he told her.

“So much foolish bravado. It’s so very unlike you.”

“Is it?” Avon jerked his head away from her grasp, not even wincing at the pull on his hair. “Perhaps you misunderstand. I know you won’t give me a clean death, but there is nothing else you _can_ get from me, or you would have done it already.”

Servalan waved an imperious hand at the guards and a moment later they were alone. She was perfectly safe, of course – tied as he was, Avon had no means of even getting up from his knees and he was certain that she had the remote control to his collar – none of the guards did.

“Is that what you want,” she asked at last, “to die, Avon?”

Avon wished she would stop saying his name. “We all die.” His voice cracked on the instinctual attempt to return her name; she smiled. “It’s the only certainty that remains.”

“Very profound.”

_That’s very profound, my love_. Avon swallowed bile, Anna’s voice echoing in his memory. He was doomed, it seemed, to forever remember her. “What do you want?” he asked, suddenly so very tired. “Orac is gone. None of the knowledge in my head will do you any good without it, even if you could get at it without rendering me amnesiac or hopelessly insane. What else is there?”

“Your voluntary cooperation, perhaps,” she suggested mildly.

“No.” Avon smiled, even though he could barely manage a weak twitch of his lips. “You really must enjoy wasting your time. I have nothing left to lose.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps not.”

He glanced up at that, disconcerted at her even tone. “I don’t give a damn about what you decide to do to me. Not anymore. We both know you can’t get what you want of me in the way your precursor handled Blake. Turning me into a good little citizen isn’t good enough.”

There was no shift in her expression. “Oh, I know. But the misunderstanding is all yours, Avon. I brought you here to show you – hm, something left to lose, perhaps?” She stepped away, back to her desk. “You see, I had this office repurposed – it used to be a surveillance room for the cell tract below it, with which I am sure you are _intimately_ familiar.”

“Get to the point.”

“The people of this planet used to believe in real-time observation. Video feeds were thought a security risk before we stepped in to abolish such ridiculous nonsense. This entire floor is a one-way window, Avon – so if I flick this switch…”

Avon jolted in his chains despite himself. He found himself kneeling on a thick layer of glass, once opaque, now perfectly transparent. What had looked like slick modern black flooring was now a window down below, overlooking a cluster of four cells. Arranged in a square, they were all identical except for their orientation; Avon wouldn’t have been able to tell whether one of them was his own – except that the one directly below him was occupied.

“You recognise him, I think,” Servalan said, almost gently.

He did.

“You can’t expect me to believe that this is real,” Avon said.

“Oh, but it is. It’s not an illusion, Avon, not this time.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That is your choice.” She shrugged daintily, examining her fingernails. “I’d even let you talk to him – without supervision, if you like. This window is soundproof, as you see. I can tell the guards to stay at the door.”

Avon shook his head, though he couldn’t tear his eyes away. “No,” he murmured, trying to find strength in the denial. “I talked to Blake on Terminal too, and he was no more real than this. They’re all dead.”

“All but you and him,” Servalan agreed. “I have no use for him, Avon. Don’t you think, if I wanted to craft an illusion, I would have picked someone else, someone I would have been more likely to save, to make it more realistic? Sweet, young Dayna, perhaps, whom you decided to rescue from execution before? Or Blake – we even have him in our systems already. Even Tarrant could have been reconditioned into a good little pilot, had he lived.”

“They’re _all_ dead.”

She didn’t know, of course. She must _never_ know.

“I can make that true, Avon, right now. There is a guard at the door – I can tell him to enter that cell and shoot Vila dead right there. He is useless to me. An unconditionable thief who knows nothing and can never be set free.”

Avon dragged in a sharp breath. “What do you want?”

“I’ll let you talk to him, unsupervised. I’ll let you do whatever you want to confirm that he is real. I’ll let him live – imprisoned, of course, but alive, and in more comfortable quarters – _if_ I have your full, voluntary cooperation.”

There were few secrets left that Avon would take to his grave, and _this_ was one of them. She didn’t know – but it couldn’t matter, either way.

_Vila_.

Any of the others would have understood, even Soolin, still a stranger when _it_ had happened. They had been trained fighters. Vila, like Avon, wasn’t. Vila, unlike Avon, had had a chance to walk away and hadn’t. Avon was responsible for him, more than for any of the others: the last of Blake’s crew.

“Or,” Servalan went on in the same, soothing voice, “I could have him killed. Right now, in front of you, as slowly and brutally as the guards can manage. I could even have the trooper wear your old clothes – that might be amusing, don’t you think?”

“No.”

Below, Vila stirred on the simple bunk, shifting under the threadbare blanket. He scratched at his thigh, resettled. The shapeless prison overall bunched up around his chest.

“What are you saying no to, Avon?”

Vila wouldn’t understand. For him, like Avon, these things were personal, and Avon owed him a rather large debt. Avon cared little for the universe at large – who was he still protecting?

“Leave him alone…” His voice broke around the words. He couldn’t bring himself to look up, but he was far too familiar with her not to know the broad, pleased smile spreading across her features.

“Very good, Avon. I knew you would see sense.”

“I want to talk to him.”

“Of course.”

She must have made some gesture, for a moment later the guards filed back into the room – all eight of them, which seemed incongruous for her moment of triumph, until…

“Unchain him,” she ordered. “Leave the collar – for now.” 

Avon found himself lifted to his feet, all bindings taken from him by two men while the remaining six guards covered him with their weapons. He had been bound in some way for as long as he had been her prisoner, but he felt no relief at being freed.

Avon rubbed his wrists, staring down at the obliviously sleeping Vila.

“The terms then, Avon,” she said.

Avon glanced up, finding only business-like frankness in her gaze. Oh, how he hated her.

“On the condition that you are allowed to do whatever you feel is necessary to confirm that he is indeed real and that he is who he appears to be, you agree to the following – and yes, we will have it in writing: In exchange for your and his continued existence – well-kept but unharmed – you will work for me. And I don’t mean that you do what you are told. I will have your full, voluntary cooperation to the best of your abilities for whatever project I choose. You will avail yourself to my purposes as if they were your own.”

Avon summoned a fake grin. “Are you sure? If I recall correctly, Blake was never very satisfied with my way of aiding.”

She smiled in turn. “Oh, I believe we shall manage. We understand each other, don’t we, Avon, and I will let you know if you overstep. Dearest Vila may lose a finger or two, but it’s not as though he really needs all ten of them, is it?”

“No. You touch him and my cooperation ends.” He wanted so badly to spit her name. “I’ll… promise not to be purposefully obstructive.” It didn’t matter that the words tasted like poison in his mouth. He was achieving nothing by refusing – this way, perhaps _something_ would come out of all the destruction. “One more thing.”

“I’m feeling generous. Go ahead.”

“I won’t attempt an escape on my own initiative – by any means – but when I am dead, Vila goes free.”

Servalan nodded. “Very well. He isn’t a political danger, and we will make sure you live a long life, Avon. I think I will be able to find it in me to be lenient to an old man, when you are gone. I give you my word; the conditions will stand.”

Avon held her gaze for a moment, longer than he really felt he could. He swallowed the impulse to thank her, nodding instead. “Now what?”

“Now I imagine you would like to convince yourself – but perhaps I can persuade you to change into the clothes I had prepared for you? Prison overalls are so indecorous.” She gestured towards the guards. “Take him down to his cell. Change, Avon. I’ll come to find you in half an hour, shan’t I?”

It wasn’t worth the argument. “As you like.”

Avon walked between the guards as best as he could, unaccustomed to the freedom of movement. He was tempted to drag his feet, to take far too short a step – he felt almost unbalanced without his shackles after so long.

The guards kept a close eye – and weapon – on him, but Avon could have told them that they were wasting their time from the moment he had even entertained the idea that it was really Vila. He had just signed away his resistance.

They locked him in the cell to change, giving him the illusion of privacy. The clothes were waiting for him – not exactly flashy, but fitted to his style: angular lines, sharply cut, dark colours. They would emphasise how much weight he had lost, and the boots felt strange after so long without any footwear, but Avon knew that once he had put the ensemble on, there would be no indication that he hadn’t chosen it for himself. None, that was, but the collar, a slim silver band that lay tight against his skin – and which all but disappeared under the turtleneck undershirt.

Oh, how he hated her.

Avon sat on his bunk to wait, fingering the collar. He hadn’t really had a chance to explore it before, unable to reach to touch it, but he wasn’t surprised to find that it was irremovable, sitting firmly under his Adam’s apple where a single decorative stone was set into its material. Avon had only ever felt the slight heat of its energy signature, and even now he didn’t have a chance to study it in a proper mirror, but he suspected that even if someone glimpsed it under the fabric, they would assume it to be jewellery – and with that came the realisation that Servalan would _never_ remove it. It was why she had never handed it over to his guards: It was her extra little insurance, if Vila should stop to serve as leverage – but then she couldn’t possibly realise how determined Avon was that Vila outlived him.

She knew about Blake – knew that he had an emotional impact on Avon; he had given as much away on Terminal and on Gauda Prime – but Servalan couldn’t possibly have any idea about Vila. They had made sure of that.

She came to collect him with an approving smile that made Avon’s skin crawl. “You’ll be let into his cell for five minutes,” she explained generously. “You can tell him anything you like to satisfy yourself as to his reality, or whatever else you may want to discuss. If you want to leave early, simply knock on the door.”

“Let’s get it over with.”

Avon hadn’t really had time to decide how he felt about meeting Vila – but he hadn’t expected it all to come crashing in the moment the door opened and Vila sat up on his bunk to face the intruder.

Avon could barely convince his body to step inside, flinching in his skin as the door closed behind him.

Vila stared at him, a strange frown twisting his features. “… Avon?”

“Hello.”

“It _is_ you! Gods!” Vila scrambled to his feet, nearly tripping over the folds of his blanket. Once up, Vila started backing away from him. “I’d ask how you managed to be alive,” he hissed, “but I guess it just figures, doesn’t it?”

“Vila–”

“I saw you shot down!”

“Vila! I only have a few minutes – I need to know.” There was a burning pain in his heart, a pressure behind his eyes, but Avon forged on before he could lose his voice. He couldn’t afford to pause, to let Vila open his mouth again. “Tell me – in the shuttle over Malodar, what happened?”

The way in which Vila’s expression immediately fell was answer enough. “What do you mean, what happened! You know perfectly well what happened, Avon! I told you I wouldn’t forget that, and I meant it!” Vila’s voice was rising to an angry crescendo. “They all died – you know that, right?! After you shot Blake, they _all_ died, everyone who mattered!”

“Not everyone,” Avon muttered, despite himself.

Vila paused for the first time, looking him over, and Avon could see him jump to conclusions as if he had never been out of practice in reading his Vila at all.

“It’s not what you think, Vila…” he began, but it was already too late.

Vila’s face had darkened into cold, hard rage. “You _bastard_. You blood bastard, you really did it. You sold out to _them_ and you step in here as if nothing happened? Did you kill Blake for _her_ , too?!”

“No! Vila, listen–”

“You tried to _kill me_ , Avon! That’s what happened over Malodar! What was that, then – another one of Servalan’s schemes? Were you working with her already?”

“Listen–”

“I’ve listened to you long enough! You know what, Avon, you can go to hell. Enjoy your gilded cage, traitor. If I don’t ever see you again, it’ll be too soon!” And then Vila did something that Avon had never seen him do, to anyone: He spat at him.

And Avon turned and knocked to be let out.

Out in the corridor, he had the first real panic attack of his life.

* * *

Avon couldn’t breathe. He sat with his back pressed against the wall, trying to expel the air from his lungs, but there was noise and flashing lights; trying to inhale but there was the cold deadness of space and Vila, Vila, _Vila_.

“Oh, Avon. Why do you _do_ this to yourself?”

Her voice crashed through the jumbled memories, and he _hated_ that she was helping, he hated _her_.

Avon brushed his hands over his face, finding tears.

She was at his desk – she’d switched the video feed off. The white gown she was wearing was resplendent, a formal affair, something befitting the Empress.

“You’re going out,” Avon mumbled, finding that his breathing was dropping back to normal, that he had his voice back without the urge to scream or sob.

“Yes.” Servalan hitched her hip up onto the table, deliberately possessive, deliberately provocative, even though they hadn’t shared so much as a kiss since she had taken possession of him. Something about the chase being more interesting than the capture, no doubt. Just thinking about it made _him_ sick.

“A very boring formal affair,” she went on, “but duty calls. You understand, of course.”

He was _not_ grateful that she always spoke to him as if nothing at all had happened, as if she didn’t own him, as if she hadn’t witnessed him lose all semblance of control, all semblance of composure, time and time again.

“Yes,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. There was no dust in his rooms to be brushed off, but he patted at his clothes anyway. “What do you want?”

She titled her head prettily. “My experts tell me you would have less of these horrible panic attacks if you avoided what they call ‘triggers’. This wasn’t meant to be torture, Avon.”

Avon could still feel the blood rushing through his head, the frantic beating of his heart. Feeling his heartbeat as a physical sensation in his chest was something Avon would never get used to.

He needed rest.

“What do you want?” he asked again, ignoring the suggestion.

“A progress update. Things have stalled?”

Avon nodded – regretting it immediately as he was reminded of the collar, which made everything worse. He couldn’t think properly, but he needed to, around her, he needed…

“Avon! Sit down before you fall.”

Avon dropped into his chair. “Remember,” he breathed, “your word that if I die, _he_ goes free.”

“You aren’t dying.”

It was so easy to believe her – the commanding tone, the utter surety. She was right, too, of course, and he knew it. The panic attacks might feel like the world was collapsing onto his chest, but they passed – in usually no more than half an hour, even if they felt like an eternity. All the same, he was no longer a young man. A heart attack brought on by hyperventilation was still a heart attack, and he wasn’t that closely monitored, not anymore.

“Possibly,” he agreed, steading his hands on the table. “All the same.”

“I remember the terms, Avon. As do you. Now: _Why_ has the project stalled?”

Avon shrugged. “These things happen. I’ve hit a problem I need to think my way around, that’s all. Surely you don’t want me to bore you with the details?”

She smiled, as false as everything else about her. “Indulge me.”

“Very well – we’ve always known that Aquitar was unstable; it’s why the original teleport project failed. Even the successful transfer of non-living matter will take some kind of work-around that I haven’t been able to find yet. And the crystalline-based teleport is not–”

“– sustainable in large numbers. You’ve said. Will it work eventually?”

“I don’t know.”

“If this were your own project, would you abandon it?”

“No. Not yet, anyway,” he replied. “I do remember the terms.” He stared at the desk before him rather than looking at her.

She pushed away from the table. “I have to go now, Avon. As long as you work for me, no harm will come to him. Haven’t I kept my word for five years? You really needn’t check on him this often.”

“Concern? Or merely protecting your investment?”

“Oh Avon. Both, naturally.”

“Oh yes. Naturally.”

“I won’t order you to leave the feed off. But it hurts you _and_ it slows you down. I can’t claim to understand why you persist. Surely once a week would do.”

Avon pressed his hands together. “I’m not explaining myself to you. You were leaving?”

She just smiled. “So I was. Until another time, Avon.”

He didn’t accompany her to the heavy security door that was his front entrance – it was enough to hear it fall back into lock with the usual reverberating sound. He was completely sealed in, of course. Barely half a year into the agreement, she’d had him drugged and transferred here – wherever _here_ was, other than behind a security airlock.

Avon was reasonably certain that he wasn’t on a ship, but whether it was a space station or a planet he hadn’t been able to determine. The rooms were an improvement to his previous cell, almost a luxury dome suit. He now had a small lounge, a bedroom, an office, and a bathroom with a shower. There was even a “window” with simulated scenery in the lounge and a day cycle programmed into the lights.

Avon could control almost everything inside, from temperature to light levels, but he had no access to the outside – he didn’t even know what the space directly in front of the door looked like. Whenever it opened, forcefields barred him from the hallway. There was nothing in the flat that she hadn’t given him, of course, but it hardly mattered. Avon hadn’t had any personal effects left after the destruction of the _Liberator_.

He didn’t know whether Vila had been moved with him, not for certain, though _she_ had told him that he had, and that the “window” in the lounge was the same one way glass that she had had in her old office, showing the adjacent cage if Avon chose to make it transparent.

Avon couldn’t handle it.

Even the thought of that immediacy was too much, but his _need_ to check on Vila that he had never been able to explain to her overrode even his fear of suffering another panic attack. And so he watched the surveillance camera feeds.

Sometimes, the edge of panic was too close and he couldn’t even manage that. Sometimes, he could watch the feed – watch _Vila_ – for a while and be fine. Sometimes, he would watch for a few moments before he fell prey to the panic attacks. It was a good thing that Vila had no one to talk to for the most part – Avon wasn’t always able to switch off the feed when the panic hit, and he thought that if he had to hear Vila’s voice through it, the panic might never let him go.

He felt ill at the thought that Vila had no idea that Avon, specifically, was watching him, but there was no way to tell him and still be able to keep doing it, and Avon needed to know how Vila was: He would void his agreement with _her_ the minute something happened to the thief. But it had been five years, and the worst that had befallen Vila was the occasional period of boredom, for which he had been given virtual companions and entertainment and the occasional real visitor, who would be brainwiped afterwards and never be allowed to return. Avon knew that for a fact. _She_ had gone to all sorts of length to keep their existence secret.

Vila wasn’t free, but he was safe – and once Avon was gone, he _would_ be set at liberty. Avon wasn’t sure how Vila would cope outside after so long, but Vila’d been a long-term prisoner before. He was certainly more adaptable than Avon had ever been. That kind of adaptability didn’t fade with old age, Avon convinced himself – Vila would shift with the tide and adjust.

_Old_. Avon was in his forties. On days like this, he felt ancient.

Avon himself received no visitors but _her_ , not that he wanted any. He had never liked strangers. His distraction, his occupation was the work and nothing else. True, Avon had a few idle projects and a vast digital library at his disposal, but for the most part he enjoyed the work. He had no superior but _her_ , no limits to his resources, no other demands on his time, no administrative duties.

She knew well how to keep him, as if someone had handed her a guide to the care and keeping of Avons. It didn’t change the fact that he was her pet, decorative collar and all, and that his mental health was deteriorating.

Avon had felt it creeping up for years, but within the last year or so the process seemed to have sped up. The panic attacks were more frequent, even without discernible trigger. He was finding it difficult to sleep, and difficult to get up in the morning.

There was no future for him, of course – no way to change things, no hope that things would change so long as _she_ lived, and she _needed_ to outlive him so Vila could be free. Avon didn’t dare to think what would happen to the agreement if she died. As much as he hated her, as much as he wished her dead, wished he had killed her years ago, she needed to be alive for the agreement to stand without question. Thankfully, she showed no signs of ill health, though there was the usual number of assassination attempts – but still, thinking of his own age terrified Avon, not because of how old he was, but how _young_ in comparison to the average life span of a largely healthy human male from Earth. It might be a very long time before his condition to the agreement came into effect.

* * *

He couldn’t solve the teleport stability issue. After a few months of struggling, he gave it up. He didn’t tell her that he was finding it difficult to concentrate for more than a few minutes at the time. She knew, anyway.

She’d been paying him visits more frequently – “just to talk” – during which she talked, and he sat on the armchair in the lounge and just… existed. He was losing hours to just breathing, distant from himself, his mind blank.

It should have been relaxing. Cally had told him so often how beneficial meditation was for the mind, how clarifying.

Avon found it anything but.

“Avon, how would you feel about a vacation?”

Avon flicked his gaze back to her. “What?”

“A vacation. I think you need a break.”

The idea of not even having the work was horrifying. “No thanks.”

“You haven’t even heard what I’m proposing,” she chided mildly.

“Please…” He wanted so badly to say her name, to beg, to plead.

“A whole planet to yourselves. Uninhabited, of course, but safe. A bit of wilderness and a new scenery will do you good.”

Her mind was made up, then. Avon rarely ever had a real choice. “Is that what your experts say?”

“Not exactly, but I wouldn’t want to bore you with all the clinical language. We would have to put you both under for the transport, but the Empire is perfectly stable at this point. You would be safe, and you could take all the time you want.”

“Both,” Avon echoed, his skin suddenly crawling. “Who…?”

“Why, Vila, of course!” she said, as if it should have been obvious. “I won’t rob you of the opportunity to keep an eye on him, and my experts…”

Her voice began to recede; Avon’s heart thumped loudly in his chest, a physical, fragile thing trapped in steel bands, struggling to escape. Faintly, distantly, he heard himself gasp, “No,” and then the red flashing vacuum swallowed him, emotions crashing through his head and heart and he wasn’t sure that he was even breathing…

“Avon! Can you hear me?!”

And he was back.

Reality didn’t seem real.

The ordinary breathing, ordinary thinking, ordinary feeling seemed less than… less.

“I,” he gasped, “don’t think…”

“I thought you would be pleased.” Her hand was on his arm, petting daintily at the fabric of his sleeve. “I know it’s scary, Avon, but your judgment is compromised, and it _is_ what you need. I will not have you die.” Her hand moved to brush the back of his neck, and Avon felt nothing at all for quite a while.

He woke up somewhere unfamiliar.

The shock of it was enough to freeze him in place for a long moment, looking wildly around the room. There was a suitcase at the foot of the bed and what he could only assume was natural light filtering in from under drawn curtains. When he sat up, he found a note on the suitcase that said only: “You have separate housing.”

Avon felt anything but safe, but it was a low thrum of terror, familiar from years on the run, rather than the horrific spikes of his panic attacks. He looked through the suitcase in the semi-dark: clothes, an unlinked data pad with instructions on how to operate the devices in this dwelling – a food processor and laundry, little else – and some information about the planet. There were no galactic coordinates, of course: It suited _her_ that Avon would be unable to say where he was even if he were to come in contact with someone who would care to know. Not that she would ever let that happen.

The planet was small. Empty. Moderate climate, moderate rainfall. No large predators of any kind.

Avon tried to use the reader to determine the galactic date and failed.

He huddled on the edge of the bed, breathing in the foreign air, and shivered. He was cut off, trapped, stuck until _she_ chose to collect him – them? He thought about opening the curtains but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he pushed open the door.

He came out onto a landing, a combined lounge and dining area below, and a massive window straight ahead.

Avon reeled back, the space and largeness far too much – even if it was beautiful. He had a glimpse of a forested shoreline and a clear, still lake, a plains with scattered trees beyond. There had been no immediate sign of the other dwelling.

Slowly, Avon hazarded forward, walking down to the window. Once more he was feeling like a dome dweller visiting his first alien planet. The air alone was different – natural atmosphere, unrecycled. He could probably go Outside.

It took Avon two days to work up the nerve, feeling stupid about it, clumsy, a coward. There had been days when he had teleported onto planets without hesitation, the immediate transition between the interior of a spaceship and the exterior on a planet fazing him little. Now he could barely bring himself to set a foot outdoors after standing on the doorstep for hours.

The other dwelling, he’d found, was in a copse of trees further along the banks of the lake. Avon had seen no movement from it.

The edge of terror was too close – he couldn’t even think about the other house for long – but he knew that he would go there eventually, if Vila didn’t come to find him first. He needed to talk to him, even just once, even just to hear his voice say his name.

On the fourth day, Avon sat on the outside doorstep, warring with the impulse to flee back inside, and wondered whether it might be possible to convince Vila to kill him. Avon couldn’t do it himself without violating the agreement or he would have done it years ago, but he had made no promise on Vila’s actions. Vila could do whatever he liked to him.

Avon didn’t have a panic attack, but it was a near thing.

On the fifth day, he walked to the beach of the lake. Once there, he crouched down to stick his hand into the water. He hadn’t been near a body of water in so long… The water was cool but mildly so – warmed by the sun. Avon settled down a little way from the edge, just watching as a light breeze rippled the surface into a thousand sparkling gems. Almost against his will, he found the tight knot within him unwinding – a relative freedom to do as he liked that he’d almost forgotten. Now that it had ceased to be terrifying it was relaxing to the point of being soporific.

Avon hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but as he lay back, the sun was in his eyes and he closed them for just a moment…

A loud splash and squawk woke him. Momentarily disorientated, combat reflexes dulled by years of disuse, Avon sat up just as Vila got his feet back under him in the water. The other man was stark naked, had apparently swum across – and was cursing quite invectively.

Avon felt for the panic, but it was distant – he was too recently awakened, too warmed by the sun, too without tension. All the same, the name burned on his tongue. “Vila.”

Vila stopped floundering, crossing his arm against his chest. There was no covering his state and he didn’t try. “What are you, then?”

“What?”

“A hallucination? A simulation? A hologram? A clone?”

“I’m real.”

“Yeah. And I’m the Emperor.” Vila turned back to the water. “I’m going to get changed. Don’t follow me.”

Avon watch him make his way back to his own dwelling, a surprisingly practiced swimmer. Every aspect of Vila was achingly familiar, even the changes that had happened over the last years. Avon watched as Vila climbed from the water, snatched something up from the ground and disappeared from view.

Avon watched and waited until nightfall, but Vila didn’t reappear.

The blankness of shock lingered until he had made it to his bed.

Avon slept little that night, only really catching a few hours after sunrise. To say that he was reluctant to go back outside would have been an understatement. Avon sat on the doorstep, trying to get hold of himself while knowing perfectly well that that wasn’t how any of it worked. Whatever _her_ experts had said, Avon doubted that they had recommended marooning him on a planet with his most constant trigger. Exposure therapy wasn’t generally recommended for panic disorders.

Avon threw himself into some breathing exercises he had taught himself. If he hadn’t learned them as a child and if they hadn’t served him well in the past to the point where they’d become something of a habit, he wasn’t sure whether he would have bothered. What, really, was the point in preserving his sanity? It only ensured that he could serve as _her_ tool for longer.

He explored the texture of the materials within reach, trying to exclude everything but the sensory input under his fingertips. Unidentifiable, smooth, sturdy material that was the outer hull of the dwelling, the slight sponginess of the door seal, the fine gravel on the ground just outside the door. The sensation pushed the worry, the thoughts, the what ifs from his mind.

“What are you doing?”

Avon snatched his hand back and flicked open his eyes.

Vila stood right there, a few feet away. He wore a plain off-white shirt and equally plain black trousers. Suede shoes completed the ensemble. He had never looked more beautiful.

For a moment, Avon’s breath faltered, but he forced it back under control. “It’s a meditative exercise,” he replied frankly. He was far too tired to lie to anyone but _her_.

“Is sitting in a door part of it, too?” Vila sneered nastily.

Avon wasn’t going to admit that just thinking about stepping any further outside made the fear boil up, made him want to run and hide. “Does it matter, since I’m not real?”

“The note said there’d be a companion. I didn’t think they’d make it _you_.” Vila wasn’t moving any closer. He just stood, watching, immobile.

“Who else?” Avon asked bitterly, unable to look up at Vila’s face any longer without his world spinning off its axis. It struck him, absurdly, that this was the most he had spoken to any human being that wasn’t _her_ in five years.

“There were plenty of strangers, over the years,” Vila sat down right where he stood, apparently unbothered by the hard ground. Avon found it difficult enough to get up from the floor these days – apparently Vila had fared a little better. Well, he was a little younger.

“If it _is_ you, _Kerr_ , what is all this, then? A new form of torture? Did Servalan finally get tired of me and passed me on to someone more… experimental?”

Avon wasn’t surprised to find himself abruptly struggling for breath. Not surprised at all, but he couldn’t do this in front of Vila! But without Vila, Avon had no ground left on which to stand. He fought against the impulse to curl into himself and lost.

He found himself pressed against the doorframe, his hands twisted into his hair and his knees pressed up to his chest, shaking all over.

“…Avon?”

Vila sounded suddenly so much closer. A touch ghosted along his arm and Avon flinched back violently, bruising his shoulder on the doorframe. He lost his balance, tumbling awkwardly backwards into the building. He jarred his elbow for good measure and stayed down, gasping.

“Sorry,” Vila said, and that was too much.

“Don’t apologise to me, you fool!” Avon spat. “I don’t deserve it! I never deserved any of your… patience, your friendship, your… love. I used you and I hurt you and I broke my word of keeping you safe and _this is all that is left_! It won’t ever change until I’m dead, Vila, and I want it over and done with! I want you to be free.”

Vila was staring at him, wide-eyed. “But…”

Avon tore his gaze away. “Free of me.” He wanted to get to his feet, to be in control, to run and hide, anything but to stay in Vila’s presence. But Avon hadn’t got anything he’d truly wanted in so long, so he curled up on his side instead, trying to sink into the floor.

He'd faced all of his interrogators sitting up whenever he could – this was worse than any of them.

“Avon.” There was a strange note of wonder in Vila’s voice, and Avon wished he would shut up. “It’s really you.”

“You can spit on me again, if you like,” Avon told the darkness behind his forearms. “It hardly matters, at this stage.”

“I thought you’d sold out. Betrayed all of it, even the memory of Blake.”

Vila made it sound as if it wasn’t true. Avon rasped a harsh laugh. “I did. I’ve been working for _her_ for five years.”

“No,” Vila said softly, sounding barely anything like the Vila Avon had known at all. “Not the way I’d thought, or you wouldn’t have marooned yourself with me here. You’d have had a choice.”

“Vila, go away and let me have a panic attack in peace.”

But Vila wasn’t going away. From the sounds of it, he was coming closer. Avon flinched and curled up even tighter.

“Avon, why did you do it, eh? Why _are_ you working for Servalan?”

“Hers was the best offer,” he mumbled.

“I don’t believe you. See, Avon, I figure you out. I was there, over Kairos, remember? I watched you step in to save Dayna. And when that alien got Cally, I watched you save all of us.”

“You were also there over Malodar.”

“Yes,” Vila agreed sombrely. “But things are different. I saw you on Gauda Prime. You don’t want to be alive, do you, not even on your own, let alone at the cost of someone else’s life – another one. But you are alive – and so am I. This is because of _me_.”

Avon sat up finally, keeping his back to Vila. He felt empty, drained of all thoughts and emotions. “You can go. Enjoy the rest of this… fieldtrip. You don’t need to see me again.”

But Vila had never been that easy to shut up. “I was wrong, wasn’t I,” he mused softly, sadly. “You’re as much of a prisoner as I am. More so, possibly, and you have been all this time.”

“If I told you the truth, would you be prepared to believe it?” Avon climbed to his feet, though he had no idea where to go from here. “You weren’t, last time.”

“I was angry.”

“I gathered,” Avon replied wryly.

“I need a drink. You got any?” Suddenly, Vila brushed past him, jostling his shoulder, and headed straight for the kitchen. “I imagine the dispenser will manage some.”

Vila navigated the space with surety – his own house was probably the same rapid set-up. They were all the alike, after all: quickly built, sturdy, basic, and normally used as early colonisation dwellings.

Avon could have fallen onto his bed and slept for days. The fact that Vila was there, strangely, did nothing to make him want to remain alert. Some part of him, it seemed, remembered the old days, when they’d been… friends and Avon could let his guard down around Vila. Or perhaps he had finally emerged at the other side of the panic, where there was only nothingness. A nothingness that contained Vila. It didn’t seem all that hellish.

Stiffly, Avon settled into an armchair and waited for whatever would happen.

Vila returned shortly with two modest glasses – modest for him, anyway – of some red liquid.

“What is it?” Avon asked without real interest.

“Trantinian wine. No idea how the real thing tastes, but the synthesised version’s quite good.” Vila happily passed one of the glasses to Avon and claimed the other chair. “Now what?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“What question was that?” Vila sipped at his drink, his voice incongruously jovial, then realisation flashed over his face. “Oh – I’ll listen, Avon. I can’t guarantee that I’ll like it.”

“I have no expectations on that front,” Avon murmured truthfully. In fact, he very much expected Vila not to like it. He took a deep gulp from the glass – he hardly cared how it tasted – and told Vila everything. How he hadn’t been able to kneel chained at _her_ feet while Vila was killed before his eyes. How the thought of living on, knowing that he had caused that, too, had been unbearable. How he’d lost part of his soul that day anyway, to what _her_ experts claimed was ‘just PTSD, presenting with panic attacks.’ How he had worked and watched Vila and worked. How he had no idea where in the known universe they currently were or where they had been. How Vila would be freed once Avon was gone. How this… holiday was meant to keep him alive.

After Avon had run out of words and drink, Vila cleared his throat delicately. “Servalan had you conditioned – are you sure it was only for that? Perhaps…?”

“How could I be sure? But whatever it was, Vila, it hardly matters. The arrangement stands and knowing how it was orchestrated won’t change our situation.”

“It might help me decide whether I trust you.”

Avon flinched from the word, shook his head. “You shouldn’t.”

“I’ve always known that. It didn’t stop me.”

“You’re a fool.”

“Yeh. You know, that was one of the first things you ever said to me, on the _London_.”

“I remember.” Avon did, vividly, but he could hardly comprehend how desperate he had been, back then. How he could have believed to know loss and guilt, then. How he could have believed that his life was over, then. Only _now_ had he got himself really trapped. Only _now_ did Vila seem to have run out of jokes. “Vila, if I were to die, right here…”

“No.”

“You haven’t even heard what I have to say. Vila, there is less of _me_ left every day. As long as I am alive, you will be a prisoner.”

Vila drained his glass, setting it down harshly on the table between them. “We’re alone now. We could get away, far away, somewhere to the other side of the planet. They’d never trace us. We’d figure out a way to survive.”

“This isn’t _fiction_ , Vila. Surviving in the wilderness is difficult. We know nothing about this planet – shelter, edibles – and they _will_ find us.”

“How? The planet’s not that small, and we aren’t monitored.”

“We _are_ the only humans here, Vila. And even if we weren’t…” Avon tugged at his shirt collar, revealing the slave band. “They’d find us.”

Predictably, Vila stared at it for a moment, then inched closer. “May I?”

“You won’t be able to open it. It’s not designed to open. I’m trapped, Vila.” On any other day, the thought might have brought the panic. Now, there was nothing. “When they catch us, they’ll kill you, and, with their leverage gone, will put all effort into keeping _me_ alive against my will. I won’t ever be free again, Vila, and the only reason I _am_ still alive is that if I tried something like that…”

“I’d be killed.” Vila finished unhappily. His fingers fell away from the collar, and Avon immediately missed the featherlight touch.

“Yes – and the likelihood that _I_ could be revived to live through it is far too high.”

“You’ve always wanted to survive.”

Avon shook his head. “There isn’t anything left but more of this and death, not for me. The question whether I want to be alive seems largely academic at this point.”

Vila sank back into the chair. “And what am I supposed to do? Sit isolated in that golden cage and wait until I’m set free to know that I’m the only one left?”

After all the years of unchanging nothingness, Avon had thought he’d lost the capacity for being surprised. The feeling of real empathy that crept up his throat made him swallow hard. “It hardly seems worth crying tears over, Vila. You’d be free.”

“I’d be alone!”

“You have been for years.”

“No, I wasn’t, not really. I don’t expect you to understand it.”

“Then you’d be right for once, because I don’t.” Avon leant forward. It suddenly seemed important that he could make Vila see things his way, that he could explain… “You thought I was working for the Federation. What did it matter if I was still alive? And I _am_ working for the Federation.”

Vila shook his head almost violently. “They’re listening to us in here, aren’t they?”

“The house probably has a transmitter somewhere.”

“Well, screw them.” Vila came to his feet abruptly. “I am not having this conversation in front of them.” He headed towards the door and waited on the threshold as if to say, _Are you coming?_

Avon barely made it to his feet – there they were, the twinges of aging joints, the heaviness of his limbs after a panic attack – but he wasn’t quite prepared to let Vila walk away, this time.

They strolled slowly and in silence down to the lake and along the beach until they were a good distance from either of their houses and Avon was too tired to go any further. The nature around him felt vast and oppressive all at once. He sat, on the ground as there was no convenient bolder, and looked across the lake. It was incongruously peaceful, as if nature itself should have responded to what was going on between them by raising a storm.

“I’ve always liked you, you know,” Vila said softly, after he’d sat down beside Avon.

Once, hearing it after everything had gone wrong around him would have mattered. Now, Avon’s heart had no place for elation: He felt it in his stomach instead, a strange, giddy fluttering, and resisted the urge to lean back against Vila. “I have nothing left to give, Vila, except for my life – my death.”

“What guarantee do we have that Servalan will do as she said, once you’re gone? She’s evil!”

“Yes, but she gave her word.”

“She’s gone back on it before!”

“Not like this. I _know_ her, Vila. She has no interest in you. You’re no danger to her. You’ve no political ambition; you don’t matter enough to kill. Even if it were public knowledge that you’re still alive, which it isn’t, a public execution would only risk creating a martyr for the rebellion; it’s well known that you were with Blake. She may as well let you go.”

“Don’t make me laugh! Execution? She’ll have someone poison my first drink as soon as I’m free!”

Avon frowned. “Then you shall have to be _careful_ – but no, I don’t think she’ll bother.”

“You won’t be there to know, so what does it matter, is that it?” Vila snapped bitterly.

“That’s _not_ it. But it is rather easy to be single-minded when there are no options left.” Avon toed a circle into the soil with the tip of his boot. “I made no promise on your behaviour, Vila. You can do or try whatever you like.” He paused, lying down on his back to look up at the terrifying height of the sky, the horrific and beautiful blankness of the enormous expanse of a planet’s atmosphere. The ground was cool against his back. “I shall try not to outlive you for long,” he whispered, scarcely talking to Vila.

Vila twisted around to look at him. “Avon, I’ve been… they’ve brought in visitors for me, over the years. Never the same person twice and half the time they’re undercover agents. But I know a snitch when I see them, and I’ve been trying to get a message out, for years. We might be rescued!”

Vila didn’t know about brainwashing, of course. And even if he _had_ found a way to get a message out… “By whom? The rebellion wants me dead as much as the Federation does. There is no way out, not for me.”

“You can’t know that! It’s what we all thought on the _London_ , wasn’t it? And we got away from Cygnus Alpha!”

“I was never on it, if you recall.” Avon almost reached out his hand to run it over Vila’s back, the way he used to do all those years ago. “These kinds of things don’t happen twice in one lifetime, Vila. Our luck has run out.”

“So you’re just waiting to die?”

“One way or another, yes.”

“What kind of life is that?!”

Avon gave him a significant look.

“Oh, no. No, I can’t do that! I’ve always hated killing, you know I have.”

Avon flicked his gaze away, back to the sky. “All right.”

“All right? That’s all you say?”

“I won’t beg or force you. It’s your choice. All of this was about making sure _you_ had a choice, Vila. I’m hardly going to ruin my own work.”

“Avon.”

Suddenly, Vila’s hand was on his. It was the first real human contact he’d had in years, and Avon flinched away from it violently, but prone on his back, there wasn’t very far he could go. His reflex reaction only caused Vila to tighten his grip determinately, even as he was pulled nearly face down onto Avon’s chest. Vila pushed himself up with his other hand pressed against Avon’s shoulder, looming over him as if he were about to kiss him. As if they were about to make love.

But instead of the smiling, cheeky expression that Avon remembered so well, Vila’s face was sombre.

“Avon, I don’t want–”

He could barely process what Vila was saying.

“I was never– good at making decisions– where it–”

“Get off,” Avon whispered. He didn’t have the physical strength to fight him. He followed a rigid regime of exercise, but even at Avon’s fittest Vila had had a stronger physique and a flexibility he knew well how to use. Avon could feel the panic nibbling at the edges of his mind at the confinement, swept along on the tide of memories.

Something twisted in Vila’s expression. He sat up, though he kept a hold on Avon’s hand. With a choked sound, he dashed his free hand angrily over his face. “This isn’t fair!” Vila didn’t cry prettily: no silent, crystalline teardrops but stuttering gasps that were quickly becoming heavy, messy sobs.

Avon stared, uncomprehending, his fingers resting limply in Vila’s clutching hand. “When was life ever fair?” he murmured, his voice a cracking shadow on the edge of panic.

Vila jerked angrily, tugging at Avon’s hand and nearly pulling him into a sitting position by pulling it tight against his chest. “Do you know what you _are_ , Avon?”

“A bastard?”

“Shut up, for once!” Vila’s grip tightened, verging on painful. “Avon, please.” He gasped for breath, or for courage. “You don’t know, do you? You’re an _inspiration_ , you know, for petty criminals like me, even when you fail. Being around you made _me_ better. All I ever cared about before was locks and money. Not people, not the big things, not even big things for myself. ‘m not made for that kind of thing. I learned to have _dreams_ from you.”

Avon awkwardly pushed himself up to his forearms. “Vila, I’m hardly… a role model for altruism. I…” He was unnaturally aware of his hand, of the way Vila’s fingers were wrapped around it, of the brush of Vila’s shirt, of how he was suddenly gripping back just as tightly.

“But you had them,” Vila wailed, hiccoughing, a torrent of words spilling out between shallow gasps, to spite the tears. “Dreams, I mean. Something worth working towards. I didn’t, not before I joined up with Blake. It’s really easy not to care if you have nothing. Cygnus Alpha might have been it, for me, and I was terrified, but I also wasn’t… trying to get away, you know, not on the _London_ , not if I’d been on me own. Perhaps if there’d been no locks, down there, I would have eventually wanted to… You always used to say I was dreaming and I _was_ – because I could, because I’d finally figured out how, because I was thinking beyond just… living. There were possibilities, and I loved you, and you used to–!”

“Vila…” Avon had always felt that his options had begun to narrow the minute he’d stuck with Blake for longer than it took to get away from the _London_ , but he didn’t voice the thought. He owed Vila that much and he had never seen the other man cry like this. A crack in the façade, a sign that Vila hadn’t come away entirely hale, after all. Avon didn’t think he’d ever seen _anyone_ cry like this, for the loss of… he wasn’t sure what, just that it wasn’t about Vila, that this was somehow about him and the least he could do was wait it out.

Vila’s tears were falling down onto their entwined hands.

“I love you. I’d have been lost, all on me own. I’d still be lost…” Vila’s voice trailed into silence, his shoulders shaking in jerky jolts even though the actual tears had finally run dry. “I’d have done anything you asked, Avon, but I…”

Avon sat fully up with a sigh, drawing his legs under him and Vila towards him until they were sitting in an awkward embrace. “Oh, Vila,” Avon whispered into his hair. “What did I ever do to deserve you? I already said it was all right; you don’t have to be alone.” He drew in a breath, finding it shuddering just as much as Vila’s. “Perhaps it’s better this way. I don’t want you to turn into me.” _I don’t want to do this to you. I don’t want to make you cry. Again._ He paused a moment, easing away, and glanced across the lake. “But no matter what we think or feel, we are hardly likely to see each other again. At least not any time soon. I may be able to glance in on you remotely, but _she_ won’t let us meet in person. It serves her well that we’re not in direct contact.”

“Does she know? About us?”

“No.”

Vila’s fingers dug into his arm. “And if it took five more years, would you stay alive to see me again?”

“I’d stay alive, of course. But I don’t know how much of me will be left. I can’t promise you’d find me sane, or lucid. I’ve made all the promises I had left… But of course I would stay alive. I can’t actively do anything else.”

“How?” Vila asked abruptly, his voice suddenly very level, very sharp.

“I’m sorry?”

“How do you want to die?”

Avon looked at him then, musing at the face torn apart by tears and the steely determination behind the eyes. “I haven’t given it a lot of thought, to be honest,” he answered mildly, feeling suddenly lighter, as if he were joking. “I had assumed it would be violent, but now that they have run out of things to torture me for, I hope it will be quick.”

“I don’t have a gun,” Vila said abruptly, a harsh rasp in his voice.

“I know.”

Vila pulled out of the embrace. “I’ll think of something, Avon. If nothing changes… if it takes five years, or ten. Next time. I give you my word, for what it’s worth.”

Avon looked at him, down at their clasped hands, and nodded. “All right.”

They had ten more days. Ten days until Avon went to sleep and woke back in his cell, in _her_ company.

“I’m impressed, Avon.”

“Impressed?”

“You seem better,” she explained, but her look said, _I thought you would try to run_.

Avon felt better, truthfully – but he wasn’t sure how long it would last, or whether he wanted it to last. Vila had given him a few pleasant memories to recall after the fiasco at Gauda Prime – and had given him the anticipation that the next time they were face to face, it would end one way or another – but Avon dreaded what would happen to him in the meantime. Oh, she wouldn’t harm him – _she_ would do anything to keep him from harm, in fact, but his body or his mind were not as easily controlled as his will.

“The contract stands,” he said, sitting up on the bed.

“Yes. The contract stands.” She moved away. “How do you feel about some new work? Things have rather stalled in your absence…”

Once she had gone, before he did anything else, Avon checked on Vila.

The erstwhile thief was back in his own cell – and he had left the agreed-upon sign. Avon didn’t have a panic attack.

* * *

The panic attacks didn’t go away, of course; it wasn’t as simple as that. For a while, Avon felt much better, but the realities of his situation intruded quickly. Vila’s forgiveness, Vila’s love, Vila’s promise were something to cling to, but they were no guarantee. They might never see each other again – and if Vila died first, Avon would have to find his own way out and the thought that he might fail terrified him.

Still, now that Vila was aware that Avon was watching, they developed a strange one-sided conversation. Vila would leave little signs for Avon, little tokens of affection – nothing so obvious as a note, but discernible enough for Avon. For a while, it helped. For a while, things were better – but it didn’t take five years.

Within a year, Avon had fallen horribly ill. Having lived in an isolated environment, his immune system was shot to hell, and she – his only visitor – evidently hadn’t decontaminated before coming to see him.

He collapsed in his office, unable to get up, unable to make his muscles move, and his last thought was _It’s over_ – before he woke up in a sterile cell, chained to the bed by his ankle. It took ages to be fully weaned from the ventilator, but eventually Avon recovered enough for physical therapy.

He was saved, cured, as he had known he would be, as _she_ had promised, or threatened: She would do anything to prevent his death. But Avon also knew that things weren’t the same even when he was finally released back into his normal cage. Every time he pushed himself, just a little, it took him longer to recover. Every time, it took less until he was pushing himself. Every time he felt his grip weaken or his legs shake, it felt more severe, more of a disruption. He was heading for a relapse. The illness wasn’t gone, it was in remission, and it would be back. But this time, he could feel it coming. But this time, he hid it. He lied, pretended age, pretended overwork.

Finally, she did what she had done before, what had worked before – she sent him on a vacation to relax. If her experts knew better, she ignored them.

Just the change of atmosphere was almost too much for him. He couldn’t get up for nearly an hour after the drugs released their hold and he woke up in the familiar unfamiliar bed, but he had to pretend for a little longer, to gather just a little more strength. He almost expected them to come rushing in after his system had gone haywire on arrival – but nothing had happened. No Federation medical team, not even any alarm. They had deposited him and left him. He’d been so sure he was monitored, but perhaps, just perhaps, there was still a little luck on his side.

Avon made his way downstairs on shaking legs, struggling to reach the door. Vila was there to catch him.

He woke up under the open sky.

“Avon?”

He looked around for the voice, weakly rolling his head. It was resting on something soft, and when he looked, Vila was kneeling next to him. Avon smiled a little. “Hello, Vila.”

Vila’s brow pinched together worriedly. “Are you all right?”

Avon studied him for a moment, trying to gather enough energy to decide, trying to figure out whether he should ask about the promise.

But Vila was already forging on: “I managed to black out the surveillance. Shorted that collar, too. We can run. My contacts will pick us up in a month’s time, we just have to stay hidden until then.”

“Really?” Avon asked softly. There was a tear making its way down Vila’s cheek again. He reached up to brush it away.

“Would I lie to you?” Vila exclaimed, affronted, but another tear joined the first and his voice cracked into an unnaturally high pitch. “That drug they use to knock us out really messes with the system, eh? Do you think you can stand up?”

Avon thought he probably could – the illness came in waves, after all. He’d covered up a number of them already, before his arrival, little spells of weakness, brief moments of unconsciousness. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’m fine now.” He scanned Vila’s face. “Trust you to keep your promise this way.”

“It’ll all work out, you’ll see,” Vila said and pressed a teary kiss onto Avon’s mouth.

When they parted, Avon dropped his hand down to run his fingers over the collar against his throat. He felt the little heat it gave off constantly, the little reminder that it was active, as it always was.

He smiled and let Vila pull him to his feet, let his hand linger in the thief’s. The illness came in waves. It wouldn’t take many more before his entire system collapsed. And then, whether or not the Federation caught up with them, whether or not Vila’s contacts were real, Vila would be free. It was all that mattered; it was all the truth he needed.

“Yes. It’ll work out,” he said, looking across the little lake for a moment, squeezing the hand of the love of his life. He could allow himself to be led on by Vila Restal one last time.


End file.
